ART HISTORICAL THINKING • Timescales

Art historians use timescales and temporal categories to divide history into periods that share characteristics or mark significant cultural or technological changes. Scholars commonly use pairs of terms for periods, such as prehistoric (before writing was invented) and historic; Paleolithic and Neolithic (separated by the beginning of agriculture and settled life); Bronze Age and Iron Age (defined by changing metallurgical technologies); and preindustrial and industrial (separated by the Industrial Revolution, the rapid development of industry and industrial processes that began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries). Scholars also define periods based on cultural, political, technological, or ecological characteristics. For example, the Early Dynastic period in Egypt is a political designation that takes into account the dynastic rulership within the Egyptian state. That period overlaps with the Early Bronze Age in Egypt, during which bronze-making technologies flourished. Such labels help us contextualize works of art in history, but they sometimes reflect older, biased ways of thinking and become problematic when applied broadly or generally.

The Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic periods are typically assigned absolute dates (40,000–9600 BCE for the Upper Paleolithic and 9600–6000 BCE for the Neolithic). But these divisions and dates are based on cultural or technological developments and human lifestyle changes that took place at different times in different parts of the world. For example, the Neolithic spans 9600 BCE–6000 BCE in Europe, northern Africa, and West Asia, but in the British Isles the Neolithic does not start until 4000 BCE and it ends around 2500 BCE, since that is when agriculture began to emerge there. Similarly, the word “prehistoric” usually describes a period before the invention of writing, or before writing that we have not yet been able to decipher. Because writing developed independently at different times in different global regions, however, the dates for the definitions of “prehistoric” and “historical” are not universal. The continued use of these terms reflects how a majority of art historians have, in the past, mainly studied works from Europe and North America, thought about art from that point of view, and privileged certain cultures and art forms in their discussions.

Today, the most common division of time is the year according to the Gregorian calendar, which is based on the solar cycle, or the time that it takes Earth to revolve around the sun. The Common Era (CE), according to the Gregorian calendar, begins in the year 1 CE, designated in the Christian tradition as the approximate year of the birth of Jesus, and previously indicated as AD (anno domini, or “in the year of the lord” in Latin). Dates before the year 1 CE are designated as BCE (Before the Common Era) and are counted backward from year 1. Various regions and cultures use non-solar calendars and set their beginning at different significant events. For instance, the migration of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions from Mecca to Medina (the Hijra) in April of 622 CE begins year 1 in the Islamic lunar calendar. Thus, part of the years 2018–2019 CE in the Gregorian calendar corresponds to the year AH 1440 in the Islamic calendar (AH stands for anno hegirae, “in the year of the Hijra”). Another factor to consider is that some scholars, particularly geologists, paleontologists, and archaeologists, use BP, or “before present,” where the “present” is set at 1950, when radiocarbon dating began to be used. When studying or writing about an artwork, it is important to consider these different timescales as part of its context.

Recently, the scientific study of the environment and global climate change has led some scholars to propose that we are living in a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene, defined by humans’ increased impact on the planet’s ecosystems. (Anthropos is Greek for “man.”) The onset of the Anthropocene—variously argued to be during the Industrial Revolution or the mid-twentieth century—would mark the end of the Holocene, which started at the end of the last Ice Age, roughly 12,000 years ago. Climate-related issues have renewed both scholars’ and artists’ interest in studying our ancient ancestors and the long history of the human–environment relationship, and artists, art historians, and architectural historians have been deeply influenced by this newly found ecological consciousness.